


Carry On

by caramelkaren



Category: Cabin Pressure, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelkaren/pseuds/caramelkaren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When MJN crash lands in the Rocky Mountains, local inhabitants noticed the plane was acting strange in the sky.  Naturally, the Winchester brothers must check it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Cabin Crew Riot Two! Prompt #4: Survival (Mountain)
> 
> Okay, I'm currently unsure of the lengths of fics produced by the other teams involved, but I can safely say I produced Team Xinzhou's longest fic with this crossover right here. And I'm honestly not sure how it evolved to be worth a full 36 points. It just did.
> 
> Be warned, my knowledge of SPN when writing this was to the episode Crossroad Blues. So I only have a season 2 background. Don't kill me for anything that they probably would've done differently later on, because I have no clue what that would be! Also, this is my first time writing Supernatural, so it's probably very bad in that respect.

“It was, it was not my fault I swear! This was not my f-f-fault! G-ERTI had a malfunction and, and I tried to land her as best as I could, m-me and Douglas, but it just wasn't good enough! Don't kill me Carolyn, I just barely survived as it is!”

“Martin! Quit panicking!”

“How am I supposed to stop panicking? We just crashed! On a mountain! Thank god there weren't any passengers on board! We, we don't have nearly enough food to last us, people aren't getting any service on their mobiles because we're trapped in the wilderness...The, the, the manual doesn't tell you what to do in this case!”

Carolyn gripped Martin's shoulders and looked him straight in the eye, which wasn't hard considering they were about the same height. “Listen to me. You need to calm down. You're not going to be of any use to us if you're just going to go on gibbering!”

Martin took a deep breath, and even though he was still quivering from the crash, he wasn't rambling on anymore, so there was indeed and improvement.

“Good. Now I have to go tend to my idiot child.” Said “idiot child” was curled up under a tree, making marks in the cold, cold dirt. He really should've been wearing gloves for this, but no one was suspected to crash somewhere in the base of the Rockies.

"How is your other arm doing, dear heart?"

"It still feels sore, Mum."

"I wish we could get you to a hospital to fix the broken thing."

"What do you mean broken? It's not broke."

"Yes it is."

"Then how is it still attached to my arm?

"It means you have a broken bones, Arthur. When you move your arm, it hurts, right?"

"Well, yeah, it does."

"So it's most likely a broken bone with the way those two clots landed us."

"Carolyn," came Douglas's voice as smoothly as possible while walking over with a damaged knee. "It's like Martin told you, it wasn't our fault. It was as if G-ERTI was _possessed._ "

"How in God's name could a _plane_ be possessed?"

"I don't know. But any time we tried to maneuver her successfully away from the mountain, she'd just steer us right back. It's a blessing we even managed to land it close to the base of it. Less of a trek to civilization."

"If you claim that you were having troubles with the landing, then I'll take your word for it."

"So how did it manage to be that Arthur and I were the ones stuck with the more major injuries yet you and _Sir_ came out of the wreckage with only some deep cuts and scrapes?"

"Douglas, I don't know, but please, if you know what's best for you, sit down so your knee can have time to heal."

"Yes, _mother_."

"I am not being your mother. I'm just being a concerned employer."

"Hmm, that's a first."

"Douglas, Carolyn, we just had a _plane crash_ and the two of you are chosing to bicker?" Martin exclaimed, sitting down against a piece of the wreckage.

Amazingly, that shut them up.

"Wow, you two chose now of all times to listen to your captain."

"Hey Douglas," came Arthur's voice, small and timid, but slightly regaining some of that old boisterous cheer they all knew and (begrudgingly) loved. "Do you have a plan?"

"Arthur, as much as I love your complete confidence in me, I'm afraid to say that right now, no, I don't."

"Oh. What about you, Skip? You sometimes have pretty _brilliant_ plans yourself."

"Well, if you mean plans to get out of here, not really. I mean, all I know is we're in the Rockies somewhere in Colorado. But I have no idea which way would lead us to help fastest. But if you mean plans to just help us survive, well, maybe we could start a fire first. That's what my uncle would do anyways."

"Oh, did he go out in the wilderness often, Skip?"

"Yeah, he did."

" _Brilliant_! So you know how to survive in the mountains from him, huh?"

"Well, no, not exactly. I mean, he didn't teach me a whole lot of lessons. Simon and I maybe went camping with him up to three times. Not that often. But I do know a little. And the first thing he did each time was start a fire. Only, I don't know how."

"Luckily for you, there's me," Douglas piped up, starting to walk over, but making a pained face as he forgot the damage in that left knee.

"Douglas, don't hurt yourself! It's already bad enough we're stuck here, we don't need to kill ourselves by being careless."

"Yes, because a broken knee being broken even more is one of the _easiest_ ways one can die in the mountains."

"And there you go being all snarky again when we've only just managed to _survive_! You could perhaps back off the sarcastic remarks for a bit and just be thankful you're _alive_."

"He does have a point, Douglas," Arthur piped up.

Douglas sat back down slowly and carefully as to not damage that apparently oh so precious knee of his. "All right. Here's what you need to do if you want to make a successful fire..."

\----

"Hey, Sammy, check this out," Dean said as he held out a local newspaper. They were sitting at the local diner in some unknown town in Colorado looking for their next piece of business. "Looks like there was a plane crash somewhere deep in the mountains around here."

"So?" Sam asked with food still in his mouth.

"Well, according to witnesses, they noticed the airplane was swerving around, almost as if they couldn't decide whether they wanted to save themselves or crash into the mountain."

"It could always just be some sort of hijacking, a pilot and a terrorist or whatever fighting for control over the plane. And besides, if you mean to say it's that one demon we stopped back back on that other flight, didn't we exorcise it and send it back to Hell?"  
"Yeah, I know we did, but it could always be another one."

"Dean, I honestly think there's not a whole lot of evidence to go off of."

"We've taken these things up on less."

"Fine, I'll humor you. Let's go find the crash site."

\----

"Skip, I'm starving."

"I hear you, Arthur, but it's not that easy to find anything to eat when you have no idea of your surroundings."

They had been stuck in this area of the mountains for about 36 hours now. Any food that they had on board G-ERTI and had survived the crash was already eaten right up. So right now the two of them were searching around for any sort of berries or nuts they could possibly find. Carolyn was concerned about Arthur going out into the wilderness with his broken arm (which was now in a sort of makeshift sling), but Martin assured her that he'd look after him carefully. All he wanted to do was help. It wouldn't be too hard to pick berries with just one arm available, would it? If Douglas hadn't damaged his knee like he did, they probably would've had him also go out with the fire axe to hunt down something like a rabbit or whatever small game lived in the lower areas of mountains. But they hadn't been that lucky. Martin certainly didn't want to have to be responsible for killing an animal like that ("I'd probably try to swing for the squirrel and end up chopping my foot off instead!"), and of course Arthur would probably have cried if he was forced to take some poor helpless animal's life away. In fact, it was amazing that Herc's own vegetarianism hadn't rubbed off on him.

"Besides, I bet we landed too high up the mountain for berries to grow properly anyway," Martin continued.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when you get so high up, it gets colder and colder, right?"

"Right. I have noticed it's quite chilly here."  
"Exactly. But unlike us who can at least wear protective clothing to keep ourselves warm enough to survive, plants just get much too cold and die off. Or more accurately, they just don't ever start growing in the first place."

"Ohhh, I get it."

"Really?"

"Yeah! But then how can polar bears survive in the Arctic?"

"Well, ummm, wait, you don't know why they do? I thought you were a polar bear expert!"

"No, I know why. They have fur and thick skin and things like that. But why can polar bears survive in the Arctic but other things can't, like plants."

"I think that goes too much into the theory of evolution for it to be explained without confusing you a million times."

The two of them then stopped in their tracks when they heard a growling noise nearby.

"Skip?" Arthur whispered, afraid that he'd only make the thing come near him if he was any louder.

"What?"

"What do you suppose it is?"

Martin spun around slowly, keeping his eyes peeled for any sort of animal that could be making a growling noise. It wasn't until he'd spun about say 270 degrees that he caught sight of it. "I, umm, I think we've stumbled near a black bear."

"Ooh, a bear!" Arthur started looking all over frantically. "You know how much I love bears! They're _brilliant_! Well, of course, black bears aren't as _brilliant_ as polar bears, but-"

"Arthur, hush! You're starting to get too loud. You, you don't want to let the bear know we're here."

"Why?"

"Well, uh, despite how much I know you love bears-"

"They're _brilliant_!"

"Yes, but, um, they aren't so brilliant when they think people are trespassing their home."

"Huh?"

"This is the bear's habitat. We're basically breaking into their home."

"Uh oh. If bears have police, we're gonna be arrested."

"It's gonna be much, _much_ worse than that, Arthur. We'll be it's dinner."

Arthur's eyes grew large with fear. "I don't wanna be eaten, Skip."

"And we won't be," Martin said, coughing as he suddenly noticed just how squeaky his voice had become since he first heard the mysterious growling noise. "J-just as long as we are very, very slow in backing away out of here."

Martin started to take steps back, suddenly becoming paranoid that he hadn't come up with a system of marking the path they took to get here in the first place. How could he have been so incredibly foolishly stupid? Nevertheless, they had to get away from the bear first. The propinquity between them was too close for comfort. He wanted that thing completely out of his sight.

As the two of them started backing away, Martin tried to let himself breathe easier. It's just a black bear. Chances are it's probably not even a people eating kind of animal after all. Getting yourself and Arthur all worked up over nothing.

Then Arthur stepped on a branch and it snapped. Loudly.

The bear, which seemed to be quite content keeping its head low to the ground (sniffing out something?) now stiffened up in alert, and was suddenly looking straight towards the source of the noise. Towards them.

Arthur couldn't help but run. "Arthur, don't!" Martin called after him. But it was too late. The sudden movement stirred the bear into action and it was coming right towards them. "Shit," he muttered as he started running off.

If it wasn't for the adrenaline pumping through his body, Martin wasn't sure how he would've survived this long. Running was certainly not one of his strong suits. Usually he was huffing and puffing after only a few minutes. And plus, running across the rocky mountain terrain that was not only easily tripped over on its own but had quite a good deal of branches too would normally make him fall flat upon his face. But he was managing to get himself out of there, even catching up to Arthur who had a significant advantage over him not only with a head start but with his longer legs.

It felt like they had been running for hours when they suddenly heard a couple gun shot behind them that stopped them dead in their tracks.

"What was that?" Martin shouted as he turned around to see the black bear in the distance on the ground, with obvious wounds in its side. "Who? Where? Why?"

Soon two men, one trailing a little behind the other, emerged from a denser packed area of trees. Arthur immediately felt the impulse to run again, but as he tried, Martin snatched his hand right up. "Arthur, don't. I think these two just saved our lives."

"Running from a black bear," said the shorter of the two of them, and the one who also had the gun in his hands. "I've seen people running away from lots of things, but that's probably the most normal creature I've seen them try to escape from in a long time."

"Who, who are you?"

"I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam. Guessing by the clothes you have on, you're from the plane that crashed here yesterday, aren't you?"

"Y-yeah, how, how did you-"

"Oh, it was reported in the news," the taller one, Sam, spoke up. "A small town like the one near by doesn't get much in the way of news often. So of course they're gonna make the most out of a random plane crashing nearby."

"Well, then, um, how come no one's found us yet except you two?"

"Bad search parties? After all, we're kinda experts on this stuff."

"You're experts on finding people?" Arthur asked. " _Brilliant_!"

"Not just people," Dean started to explain. "All sorts of things."

"Wowww!"

"So, where's the rest of the survivors?" Sam asked.

"Back with G-ERTI!"

"That, that's our jet," Martin clarified. "Or at least what's left of it."

"No one ever specified that it was a jet," Dean remarked.

"Well, it is. And I'm the captain of said jet. Captain Martin Crieff. Though, I guess with, well, the damage done, I'm not really the captain anymore."

"And I'm Arthur Shappey! Steward of the aeroplane!"

"So, do you think you can take us back to where everyone is?"

"Umm, well...I think I might have lost the way..."  
"Skip! How could you?"

"I, I...I don't-"

"Hey, we'll get you there," Sam said. "After all, we found you, I'm sure we can find them."

\----

Carolyn and Douglas when left alone were either constantly trying to out-snark the other or sitting around being absolutely bored out of their minds. Unfortunately, the latter was the current case.

"When are they going to get back?" Carolyn asked, trying to sound incredibly starving (which she was though) instead of like the overly-concerned mother she actually was. She just didn't want to seem scared. Sooner or later someone would have to find them. There had to be some random witness to their plane crashing into the mountainside. Some random clot to report what they saw and get a search team involved.

"I don't know," Douglas said, sounding absolutely _bored_. As in flying over Russia until the recorded end of time before arriving in Limerick _bored_.

"You'd think it wouldn't be two hard for the two of them to find something. After all, experience has shown that when you put just the two of them together, their abilities to be absolute dolts seem to cancel out."

"I need to go and do a little _relieving_ ," Douglas said as he slowly but surely got himself to stand up. He'd found a decent sized branch (or could it be considered a limb?) to use as a crutch as his knee continued to heal. He wanted to complain about it, Carolyn could tell, but he never did. Probably because he didn't want to hear Martin's shouts of "Be lucky you're even alive!" over and over again.

As Douglas seemed to leave off somewhere private at what was almost a snail's pace, Carolyn allowed herself to relax out of her charade. She started looking all around for any sight of her two boys. Because really (though she'd never admit it) it was as if both of them were her sons and not just Arthur. And she had managed to be coaxed into letting them leave the proximity and go off into the unknown wilderness. What kind of a mother was she? She should have gone with them at least...

A few minutes later, Douglas returned and plopped himself down beside her. "Still not back, huh?"

Carolyn just sighed with contempt. "Nope. And they better quicken the pace and find something before I go cannibalistic on you."

"Oh, you'd find I'm not very tasty at all. No, no."

"But when you're starving, is it taste that really matters? Or is it substance?"

"True, true. I have eaten some unsavory things when I was _truly famished_."

Wait. Something really didn't feel right to Carolyn. There was definitely a bad vibe in the air. But what exactly was it...

"So if I did ever become desperately ravenous enough to feel the need to eat you," she said while trying to hide the sneaking suspicions she was having, "it wouldn't matter how well you would taste."

"Point made."

Carolyn looked over to Douglas to see him with his eyes closed, arms stretched behind him, reclined back with legs crossed together. It was such a typical Richardson pose. Then she noticed.

His "cane" was missing.

Douglas opened one eye to look over to her. Only it didn't look like his usual eye color. Not at all.

It was entirely black.

\----

"Where we crashed can't be too far away from here," Martin complained. "I know Arthur and I didn't spend this much time out here. Oh god, I got us lost!"

Dean leaned in towards his brother and muttered, "Is there a way to put a muzzle on him?"

"I heard that!"

"Well, excuse me for getting a tiny bit annoyed with all constant worrying you-"

A shrill shrieking pierced through the air, and the two MJN crew members knew exactly who it was.

"Mum!" Arthur shouted, nervously spinning himself around in circles unable to determine where her screaming was coming from.

"This way, Arthur," Sam said, taking the steward's hand and running him off to follow Dean who had taken up the lead. Martin of course followed up without a second's delay.

Within a minute or so Dean found where the wreckage of the jet was at. The screams at this point were coming from behind the protection of some of those metal scraps. "Douglas! Stop this!"

"Mum!" Arthur shouted as he caught sight of her cowering. It was hard to manage to keep himself composed. Not even when his father got abusive did she ever display such obvious, deep-seated fear.

"Arthur?" she shouted back. But she didn't have time to relish in her son's return when what appeared to be Douglas (but was so obviously not him) found her hiding place. "Stop it, please!"

"Hey!" Dean shouted at the older man. "Douglas" looked up at him with a glare that could kill. "Yeah, you, you son of a bitch." Dean turned to face Arthur and Martin, who were both absolutely scared out of their wits. What had happened while they were gone and why was Douglas, well, not Douglas? It made absolutely no sense to either of them. "He's been demon possessed."

"W-w-what?" Martin stuttered.

"Demon possessed," Sam echoed. He immediately felt a pang of sympathy for them. Not only was one of their own corrupted, but the only method of getting rid of the demon, an exorcism, sometimes resulted in the death of a particularly weak host. Considering they had just been in a plane accident, he wouldn't be surprised...

Arthur and Martin looked at each other in confusion. Demons possession? Wasn't that just something that happened in movies? A Hollywood invention to try to scare people out of their wits? That could not, should not, be what was happening here. And not to Douglas. What had he ever done wrong? But to look at him, with that black gaze, the features full of what could only be described as evil personified...To say it was demon possession actually made sense.

"Sammy, would you do the honors?" Dean asked.

Sam took a deep breath. If he was going to possibly kill this innocent man to send this son of a bitch back to Hell, he needed to be mentally prepared for it. But as he opened his mouth to begin the ritual, something surprising happened. The demon immediately gave up its host body, flying up and disappearing into the air. Douglas, his body disoriented after it all, collapsed onto his side down onto the rocky ground below.  
"Now what the hell was that?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," Sam replied. It's like it knew what I was trying to do, and it just didn't want to even let me have the chance."

"Smart bastard then."

Carolyn finally managed to stop shaking in fear long enough to walk over ever so slowly to where Douglas lay. Arthur saw her inching towards the unconscious First Officer, and ran up to her. "Mum!" he shouted, hugging her while pulling her back away from Douglas.

"Arthur, oh I...I don't believe what I saw for a second," she said, holding her son tightly. "And I'm not letting you out of my sight again while we're stuck here."

"But we're not stuck here!" Arthur announced, pulling away so he could more effectively (which meant enthusiastically) tell her the news. "While we were out there, we met Sam and Dean, and they've come to save us!"

"Sam and Dean? You mean those two clots?"

"They aren't clots! They saved me and Martin from an angry black bear."

"Saved you from what?"

"Yeah, we found a bear, and we were leaving slowly and quietly away from it so it hopefully wouldn't notice it, but I stepped on someting loud and-"

"Yep, this is exactly why you're not leaving my sight again. I shouldn't have let you go in the first place."

"But everything turned out alright in the end! And if we never left and ran into Sam and Dean, we may have all been attacked by whatever was pretending to be Douglas." Arthur looked down to see just how close they were to the man's body. "Which in fact we should probably step away from in case any of that is left over."

"Arthur," Dean said, tapping on his shoulder to get his attention. "You don' t need to worry about it. Demons would never leave anything behind. That'd be like you leaving the house without your foot. That just doesn't happen."

"Oh. So Douglas is safe?"

"We hope so. It could come back after him though, so we're all going to have to be on guard."

"It could come back?" Arthur asked, looking absolutely terrified.  
"Look what you've done," Carolyn started to scold him.

"I didn't know-"

While Carolyn was giving Dean a good stern talk about what was and wasn't appropriate to say around her son, Martin was busy asking questions out of Sam. That is, once Sam was done making sure that yes, Douglas was alive and would stay alive.

"S-so a, a, well, a demon?" he asked looking almost straight up. At least that's what it felt like to him. Curse being only 5'7"!

"I know, it's a bit much to take in when you've never been exposed to anything like it before. Sometimes I take for granted growing up with all this knowledge of just what's out there."

"W-what, just what was it doing inside Douglas anyways?"

"I'm not really sure. If it was anything like another demon we know that caused plane crashes-"

"Wait, you-you're saying that that, uh, that thing is the reason we, we crashed?"

"Well, most likely, going by what the eye-witness report I read said."

"Actually, that makes a lot of sense...actually."

"It does?"

"Yeah. I could swear that G-ERTI had a life of its own when we were trying to land her. She had a random malfunction that neither me nor Douglas had time to figure out because, well, y-you know, we had to get ourselves to safety in the _Rockies_. But every time we'd set her to land where it was at least somewhat safe, suddenly it was as if a ghost had taken up the controls and aimed it right for the peaks of the mountains instead."

"Yep, sounds like the work of a demon to me. Some of them do have the ability to be invisible. Usually more powerful ones."

"But why would it be trying to crash us?"

"There are many reasons. But chances if you're worried that it was something you did or any of your crew members, don't worry, it most likely wasn't. Demons just really don't like humans and if they can sabotage you, they will."

"Oh, so, so we're just its random kill of the day, were we?"

"Possibly. It's hard to say for certain."

"But it escaped, right? Does it mean we're free from it, or will we have to be on our guard for basically the rest of our lives?"

"Well, we have to send it back to Hell. But the only way I know how to do that is through an exorcism."

"Wait, don't tell me-"

"We're going to need it to possess one of you again."

"Oh God..."

"I know, it sounds like an absolutely terrible solution, but I don't know an alternative!"

"So even though you could easily just take us all somewhere so that we could find flights back to Fitton, we're going to need to stay here even longer, huh?"

"It would be easiest. But hey, I'll make it a lot easier on you guys and bring you all some food."

"Oh that would be brilliant! Great, I'm turning into Arthur now..."

\----

It wasn't easy trying to convince the entire MJN crew to stay another night in the cold mountains. Especially when it started snowing on them around 6 pm. But both Sam and Dean knew this was what they had to do. It was not an easy decision on their part either. Despite some obvious flaws in all of them (Martin being too jittery and stuck up, Arthur being almost idiotic, Carolyn being Dean's worst nightmare so far, and Douglas being nothing but a sarcastic bastard), they didn't deserve any of this. Not at all.

Douglas was actually though not the hardest one to convince to stay. In fact, he was honestly quite understanding. "I get it. You want to keep us all safe, and to do so, you need to be able to trap the thing. If that means putting myself back out in the firing line again, I'll do it."

It was Arthur that had the worst time. Though honestly, if they had to rank from a hardest to easiest to convince, Sam and Dean would've placed him at number two, so it wasn't that much of a surprise. The man had such a childlike mentality that this was akin to taking a kid who was afraid of the "ghosts" in their closet and just shoving them right in said closet at night. It wasn't productive to getting over fears. And Arthur was absolutely terrified of the demon.

In fact, that night when Sam had finally came back with more food for the MJN crew, Arthur decided that he was going to sit as far away from Douglas as he possibly could. He had no idea when that demon could be back to possess his First Officer, especially now that the sky was the same color as the demon's true form: black.

"Douglas, are you alright?" Martin spoke quietly to him.

"No, I'm not alright, and all this joking around and being friendly with these two boys here is all just a _facade_."

"That's, that's not really what I meant. I mean, doesn't it bother you that Arthur's, well..."

"Oh, that. Not really. He's scared, and not of me, but what could happen to me. Which honestly is quite a big compliment."

"I guess..."

"Now, why is this bothering _you_ so much? It's not you he's avoiding, it's me. Why do you need to know if _I'm_ alright?"

"Well, I mean, I know you all keep telling me to just get over it and move onto a new topic, but I can't. I keep thinking to myself what if I didn't survive? Or if you didn't or Arthur or Carolyn? We were all so close to death in that one moment. And, and I guess that makes me overly concerned for all of you. I know, it sounds daft, and you can make fun of me for it when this whole demon thing is over with, but I guess I just realized how much you all mean to me since now I know just how fragile our lives are."

Nothing more needed to be said.

Sam and Dean on the other hand were having a conversation of their own when going to find some more wood for the fire. Which wasn't easy considering the majority of the wood to be found on the mountainside was contained in trees. Which needed cutting down

"No, this isn't one of my premonitions," Sam started, "but just a bit of a gut feeling. I think Arthur is going to be the demon's target."

"Arthur?"

"Yeah. Think about it. He's completely vulnerable right now. He's absolutely terrified of this demon. Who else would it be?"

"Well, you might also want to take Martin into consideration. I mean, the man is a complete ball of nerves over just about everything."

"Perhaps, but I'd still bet my money on it being Arthur. And no, I don't actually want to bet on it so don't start."

"What doesn't make sense to me is how Douglas was the possessed one of the two. Martin claims that he is the more level-headed one."

"Yes, but he did leave off alone shortly before it tried to attack Carolyn. Maybe it was waiting for someone to break away from the pack."

"Well, if that's the case, make sure they drink lots of water," Dean suggested with a wink.

"You seem pretty nonchalant about this whole thing."

"Shouldn't I be?"

"Don't you feel at least a little bit awful about this?"

"A little, but Sam, how else are we supposed to trap the demon where we want it? It disappeared. Still don't understand why, but it did. It could be anywhere in these mountains."  
"Yes, I get it. I'm not trying to tell you to completely uproot our strategy, but these people have been through a lot lately. I wish there was some other option for their sake."

"Is this what college does to you? Make you soft?"

"Or maybe I'm just sane enough to show some sympathy."

"Oh, I'm the insane one?"

"In the context of the fucked up life we lead? No. In the context of a normal person's existence, then yes."

"Who cares about them anyway."

"And point made."

\----

Martin woke up in the middle of the night nearly screaming over a nightmare. He did last night as well, and in fact, it was essentially the same dream. It was a ghastly recounting of the plane crash, only this time when he emerged, they didn't all survive. The first one involved Douglas lying in a pool of his own blood. Tonight's was finding Arthur's neck snapped open.

Tears began to stream down his face in a mixture of fear and relief that it was nothing but some night terror. He quickly tried to pull himself together though. Even without a working G-ERTI, he was still the Captain of MJN Air. A leader. He needed to keep on a brave face and keep as calmed and composed as was possible for him. Which wasn't much, but definitely more than this.

His eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and he could see the faint outlines of bodies in sleeping bags. Everyone else was getting a good night's sleep. God, why did he have to be the only one still worried after the accident. It wasn't even their fault! It was a demon's!

Martin rolled onto his side and started to settle himself back into a comfortable sleeping position. But just as he was starting to close his eyes, he bolted awake once more.

The slumber bag beside him was empty.

"Arthur?" he whisper-shouted, completely angry at him yet not wanting to wake up and alarm the rest of the crew just yet.

Arthur Shappey was many things, and while a clot was one of them, that description did not include leaving camp in the middle of the night with a demon somewhere out there. This was beyond his level of mistakes.

Martin started to get up and tip toe away from the camp, but not too far away. He didn't want to wind up missing himself.

Soon he heard a noise that sounded a lot like footsteps coming closer and closer. Oh, please don't kill me, Martin begged silently.

"Oh, Skip! I didn't wake you up, did I?"

Martin breathed out a sigh of relief. "It's only you. Gosh, you scared me!"

"Sorry, I just had to take a tinkle. And it took me a while. Not easy to unbutton your trousers when your one arm is in a sling."

"That's what I had hoped when I randomly woke up to find you, well, not _you_ but your sleeping bag empty. I thought you'd done something really stupid and had been lost or captured or, or..."

"But Skip, it's alright! You worry too much."

"You think I don't realize that?"

"Oh, well, it's just that people usually don't recognize their own flaws."

Wait...Martin glared at Arthur suspiciously. "But since when do _you_ recognize them in others?"

"I-I, uh...I always have I just don't...comment on it. Because why dwell on that instead of what makes them _brilliant_!"

"Arthur, you've said the fact it took me 7 times to pass my flying tests was, well, _brilliant_ and that's quite a flaw." Martin just stared at Arthur, looking at him for any sign of change. Even though he couldn't find any, he still jumped to conclusions anyway: "It's the demon talking, isn't it?"

"Oooh, you're good. Looks like I underestimated you."

Martin shivered from just how creepily surreal it was to hear such a sinister tone coming out of Arthur's sing-songy voice.

"W-what do you want?" Damn. He stuttered. There went his moment of bravado.

"Oh, nothing. I just kill because I have nothing else to do."

Martin was sure his nightmares about the plane crash were over. _This_ would haunt him in his sleep instead. And since when had his eyes become glossed over with blackness?

"Why us? What did we, well, what did we ever do to you?"

"Nothing. It's just that it was convenient. A plane flying not too far away from the mountains. All I had to do was slip invisibly on and mess around with the controls just enough to make it look like a technical failure but all the while have myself behind the controls. Of course, I never expected the two of you to be able to even overtake enough to crash as safely as you did."

"Heh, well, I did properly land her on one engine before, not to toot my own horn or anything."

"Too bad all you managed to do was just _postpone_ death. I have my sights set on you, and I'm not giving up. No survivors."

"If th-that's the case, then, um, how come you haven't killed any of us yet? After all, this is your second possession. You honestly could've taken out Carolyn with the amount of time it took for us to reach her. You could be taking me out right now!"

"Oh, I was seriously hoping that you'd come to see this as a compliment. I'm actually taking the time to invest a much more psychologically torturous demise for you all. I mean, if I couldn't kill you off simply with a plane crash, why not have my fun at something a touch more complicated? After all, I've got nothing else better to do. But if you insist that I should be slaying you as quickly as possible, who am I to deny that?"

"Wait, no, no that's not what I meant!" Martin started to scream and back away slowly from the demon possessed steward. "That-that's not, I didn't want you to, I didn't mean, Arthur!"

"Arthur can't hear you, so why are you even trying?"

Martin ran over closer to the sleeping group shouting, "Sam! Dean! Wake up and help me!"

"Already on it," Dean said, cocking a shotgun. "I'm quite a light sleeper."

"No, no, no, no, no!"

"What?"

"You can't just _shoot_ him! That's still Arthur's body!"

"It's rock salt! It only harms the son of a bitch inside him."

"You're positive about that?"

"Yes."

"But that's how you're going to kill it?"

"Nah, this just weakens the demon. We have to exorcise him."

"God, this all sounds like something out of a horror film."

"So where is Arthur anyway?"

"Well, I was running away from him, but...Shouldn't he have caught up by now?"

"What is this thing's problem? It's not acting like most demons do."

"Is it scared of us?" Sam asked.

"Ah, how good of you to finally join the living, Sammy."

"It said, in Arthur's voice so it really put me off, but that it was doing something psychological because why not, it had nothing better to do."

"Oh, so it just wants to mess with you guys now," Dean remarked. "Nearly kills you by taking over your airplane, and now it's just messing with you."

"I don't know, maybe it wants to watch us all go insane as we kill ourselves off or something like that."

"Actually, you're almost spot on, Martin," came the sound of Arthur's voice.

Martin nearly jumped out of his skin due to his sudden appearance. "Where, wh-where did you come from?"

"It's as easy as this," "Arthur" said, snapping his fingers and turning up right behind Martin.

"Shit!"

Dean immediately took action and shot "Arthur" right in the back.

The demon screamed out in pain from the effects of the rock salt.

"Now, Sam!"

"Right," Sam had been carrying a special book, and he began to open his mouth to read from it, but "Arthur" somehow still had the strength to smack the book away from him before he even muttered a word out. "No, you are not sending me to Hell. I know exactly what you're trying to do!"

Martin watched as the book landed open pages first close to his feet. Slowly and carefully as to not give himself away, he reached for it and noticed just where to start. He could do it, couldn't he? As he skimmed over the words on the page, for the first time in his life Martin was thankful for being forced to study Latin in school.

He took a deep breath. He had to be calm, collected. It didn't say anywhere, but Martin had a feeling that he wouldn't be able to properly rid the demon if he stuttered in the middle of it. Just a hunch.

As he said the strange verses, it was amazing how it seemed to all flow right out of him. It had to be because of how much he wanted to free Arthur (and the rest of them of course) from the wrath of this demon, which was now currently starting to scream from the pain. He knew words could be powerful, but never knew this much.

"What is going on here?" came a shrill demanding voice. Shit. Carolyn had woken up. Deep breath Crieff, keep reciting...

"Oh, Mrs. Knapp-Shappey," Dean began, using the title in which she ordered him to use, "I can explain."

"What is going on with my son? And why is Martin speaking strange words?"

"An exorcism is in progress. Normally Sam would be the one performing it, but-"

"A _what_?"

"Turns out the demon came to him since he was the most emotionally vulnerable of you all."

"I was okay with this idea when it was Douglas who was the trap, but _not_ when it puts my son in harms way!"

Martin was honestly amazed he was still concentrating with the two of them shouting at each other like that. But he had to continue. As each line was completed, the more and more the creature inside began to to cry out in anguish. Martin soon found that he could no longer stand to watch and had to just keep his eyes completely glued to the pages of the book. Yes it was the demon that was in pain, not his steward, but it was still Arthur's body writhing around and his face squinching up. It looked like his friend was in pain. It was unbearable. No wonder Carolyn was going berserk.

But soon he managed to free the demon out of Arthur's body, but his work wasn't done. According to the book, there was one more step, the actual sending of the demon to Hell. Martin was surprised as to how when he was reading along that the black whispy mass hadn't flown away but rather seemed to be stuck there. Were the words just that powerful? Apparently they were, he thought as eventually, the demon had been summoned away.

"Sam, did you draw a Devil's Trap around the camp?" Dean asked.

"Yes I did. I'm just lucky no one managed to ruin it."

"Hey, I didn't say you could change the topic you dolt!"

\----

Martin was tending after Arthur when he finally managed to wake up from unconsciousness. He was told by Sam (Dean was still being absolutely chastised by Carolyn) that the steward would have no recollection of being possessed or even any of the exorcism, so he made absolutely sure not to mention a word about that. But he still had to convince him that the demon was gone.

"Yes, _I_ got it out of Douglas' system."

For once, the First Officer was okay to be the butt of the lie.

"And sent it away?"

" _I_ sent it all the way to Hell."

Oh yeah, Martin was overly proud of himself. Turns out there was something he could do naturally, and that was put a demon in its place. Not exactly the thing he had been expecting, but hey, it was something!

"So you'll be joining up with Sam and Dean now that G-ERTI's destroyed, huh?"

"What are you talking about?"

"They'll have to ask you to join them. You're a natural, which is absolutely _brilliant_! How could they let you walk away?"

"I think they're pretty good on their own. And besides, I think the only reason I was any good is because of concern for a friend."

"Aww, well, Douglas has the best friend of them all then!"

Oh, how much Martin wanted to correct him.

"But we're finally getting out of here, right?"

"Yep! As soon as Carolyn stops yelling at Dean. You know, I don't get why she blames him. It was Sam's idea in the first place!"

**Author's Note:**

> No, the title is not a reference to Carry On, Wayward Son (though I did notice how that seemed to work later on), but to a totally different classic rock group. I'll give you 10 cookies if you correctly guess this one.


End file.
